


Echo

by justbygrace



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Canon verse, F/M, Potentially triggering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-05
Updated: 2014-12-05
Packaged: 2018-02-28 05:22:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2720267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justbygrace/pseuds/justbygrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I have written many triggering things and this story is potentially one of the most triggering that I have written.<br/>Please read this with caution as it deals with mental health concerns and hospitalization.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Echo

The ticking wouldn't stop. Sometimes Rose wasn't certain whether she even wanted it to. She was endlessly caught between hating the way it permeated her body, filling every cell and setting her nerves on fire and the relief of some noise to offset the white walls, steel furniture, and iron bars. Occasionally she could almost imagine she could hear words, sentences, syllables in the words, but she could never quite work out what it was communicating. 

When they came for her, taking her to a small room and endlessly firing questions, the ticking could still be heard and her interrogator's cadence matched it, the questions taking on a life and rhythm of their own. She didn't know if this was intentional or not, but she couldn't gather enough willpower to answer their questions, let alone ask any of her own.

"Who are you? Why are you here? Where did you come from? Where are you going? Did you come alone? Does this box mean anything to you? Who is the Doctor?"

Rose would stare at her hands, the cuticles torn and bleeding, the knuckles raw and red, and she would try to answer their questions. She would open her mouth and nothing would come out - the words eaten by the endless ticking. Her thoughts were forced to form in staccato form and the noise prevented her from focusing on any one thought long enough to make sense of it.

Sometimes the questions sparked images, blurry and disconnected but there, tantalizing her with their presence - it was something the ticking couldn't completely pixelate, no matter how hard it tried. But the pictures didn't translate to words and she was forced to sit in silence, focusing on small things, the edges of the table, the corner of the widow, small pieces of the world that kept her present, until they eventually returned her to her cell.

Eventually she learned to compensate, to think without thinking, to trick her brain into concentrating on the ticking so that she could move around her brain, connecting the random pieces. Occasionally the idea that he would be proud of her popped unbidden in her brain, disturbing the endless ticking, but it was a standalone thought and she didn't know who he was or why that mattered so much to her.

Initially, once and long ago, she had been certain that the ticking was meant as a slow torture, designed to break her. The ability to use the ticking to count time, to find solace in, to revel in, was not in the design. But she did it anyway. The ticking helped the world to move, forwards, backwards, occasionally sideways, but it steadied her, never allowing her to fall off and she clung to it, learned it, wrapped herself in it and shut out the questions.

"Who are you? Why are you here? Where did you come from? Where are you going? Did you come alone? Does this box mean anything to you? Who is the Doctor?"

Sometimes she wasn't certain that the noises her jailers made were any more intelligible than the ticking. The two sounds blended together and created a new symphony, a cacophony of sound that no longer communicated ideas to her. She didn't bother to open her mouth anymore and allowed the tide of noise to lift her and bear her back to the cell.

The ticking took a lot of things, but it seemed unable to touch colors. The brilliant golds, muted blues, pitch blacks, soft pinks, and deep reds - these are what spoke to her, telling her their own story and, occasionally, her story as well. 

Now when they came to get her she simply shut her eyes, allowing the dissonance to blend together and floating away to a land of colorful fantasy. The urgency to their questions meant nothing to her, why should she care about answers when the line between truth and fiction was this blurred?

"Who are you? Why are you here? Where did you come from? Where are you going? Did you come alone? Does this box mean anything to you? Who is the Doctor?"

Eventually, after awhile, immediately, there came a day when different things happened. Or, at least, the colors changed, bronze and turquoise and cyan, intruding on her dreams. She was angry at first, but it was a relaxed sort of anger that hardly disturbed her at all. Then the anger became bright and piercing and she hid, taking refuges in the dark colors in the back, refusing to venture out until the red became softer and faded to a clear blue. 

After that there came a time of war. Blue against red, gold against black, light and dark, day and night - an endless tussle that ended when the colors began to retreat, acknowledging victory to an older and deeper form of power.

The questions had changed. They were no longer questions and they no longer matched the ticking's tick. Instead they weaved through it, under it, over it, interrupting and pausing it.

There was an awareness again. Not of words, not of sight and sound, but of a change to the ticking. It was no longer steady and she didn't know when it had changed. It was intermittent now, raising to a fever pitch when the colors staged a revolt, dying away when the colors withdrew. There was an acknowledgement that the voice had something to do with it, but she wasn't entirely sure what or when or how or why.

She slept now. Slept and woke in a pattern that shocked her every time it repeated itself. Her periods of awareness lasted longer and longer, sights and sounds starting to intrude and to make themselves known. At first she tried to push them away, angry with them for intruding, but then she began to desire them.

"Rose."

It was the first word she could associate as being one. She didn't yet know what it meant, but she knew that it was a word and she took comfort in that fact as the cycle of sleep and waking began over again.

And then she did know what it meant. It meant her. That word was her. She didn't know how or why, but she was certain that Rose equaled her and she equaled Rose. The thought brought a longer break in the ticking, enough to draw her attention to the hum of sound that she now knew to be words, and sending sparks of joy radiating through her entire being.

The words came swiftly after that.

"Doctor. TARDIS. Jack. Home. Jackie. Earth. Powell. Time. Space. Wolf. Safe. Raxacoricofallapatorius. Slitheen."

The colors had all but faded, leaving washed out and faded impressions behind and they held no appeal to her now. The ticking had slowed, slowed, slowed. She wanted...so much more.

Rose opened her eyes. It was dim in the room, a faint greenish glow emanating from the bronze walls. There was a moment of panic that clawed at her throat and then she knew where she was, in the TARDIS' infirmary. She grew aware of a pressure on her abdomen and she turned her head, her eyes catching sight of the Doctor's head where it rested on her stomach, one of her hands clutched tightly in both of his.

Her breathing hitched at the sight of his familiar countenance and those daft ears and the sound caused the Doctor to twitch. He raised his head, slowly at first and then all at once, his blue eyes dark with worry and then relief as they scanned her and found her to be awake.

She avoided his gaze at first, uncertain of what she would find in his eyes, choosing instead to focus on the agility with which he gathered equipment to test her vital signs, the words that flowed from his mouth, the smile as he looked at her.

At length he paused, stopped completely by her bed, his hand brushing across her forehead, one finger sliding down her cheek to lift her chin.

"Rose?" His voice was soft, but laced with steel. "Rose, look at me."

Slowly, ever so slowly, she raised her eyes, lingering over his maroon jumper, black jacket, the planes of his face, and eventually meeting his crystal blue eyes.

And the ticking...stopped.


End file.
